A Love Story (part 1)

In honor of Valentine’s Day, this week I decided to share my love story, at least the beginning of it. I can’t share the end because it hasn’t ended yet.

The first time I remember seeing Chris was out of my living room window. I was living in Provo with my sister, Emilee, and it was the beginning of my senior year at BYU. I looked out the window one day and saw a guy across the street working on his car. His car looked something like this

except it had a lot more rust and dents. It was parked on the front lawn of his apartment with the hood up. I remember thinking “That boy looks cute.” He was wearing a dark green t-shirt, that was kind of tight. He looked good in it. (He still has that shirt. It is an old army issue t-shirt and it is thread bare. I don’t think I’ll ever let him get rid of it.)

We like to joke that I fell in love with him because of his car.

It was an interesting time in my life. It was towards the end of the most serious relationship I had been in up to that point. The boy couldn’t decide if he wanted to date me or his best friend from high school. I was hanging out with him still, hoping that he would choose me but knowing that he wouldn’t.

I also had an old boyfriend who had just come home from his mission. The relationship I had with him wasn’t defined. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to work out but we had a history and I didn’t want to let go of him yet. I knew he liked me which felt good. He was easy to fall back on.

The first weekend of October, Emilee and I went to a session of General Conference at the Conference Center. While we were there, for some reason we decided that we needed to be good neighbors and meet the boys who lived across the street. The next night we thought we would go on a bike ride with one of our roommates. When we tried to leave we discovered that one of our bikes had a flat tire. I had a pump that we could have used to pump it up but we decided it was a better idea to go across the street and ask the boys who lived there if they had one that we could borrow. I don’t remember if they had one or not but I do remember that we didn’t go on a bike ride that night.

We talked for awhile and they invited us to a BBQ they were having later in the week. We went to their BBQ and had a fun time. They were fun boys and I was hopeful that we would become friends. It didn’t take long for me to single Chris out. I mentioned him specifically in my journal 10 days after we met them. I said “I dig Chris. I think he’s cool.”

We started hanging out with those boys off and on. We liked them more and more. They were fun boys and we liked being around them. One night Emilee and I were driving with two of Chris’ roommates. They asked me what kind of boys I was interested in. I said someone who liked the outdoors, etc. They said “Someone like Chris” and I responded, “Someone exactly like Chris.”

We continued to all hang out, my roommates and his roommates. We were all just friends. One day early in November a few of us were supposed to go rock climbing. It ended up being just Chris and I. I wrote in my journal

I ditched class and went rock climbing with Chris. It was fun. It was just the two of us and we went up Rock Canyon. Then we stopped at the Malt Shoppe on the way home and he bought me a shake. It wasn’t really a date. He is a cool kid though.”

The next weekend I was supposed to hang out with him again but ended up getting tickets to a U2 concert at the last minute. I was so excited to go to the concert but was sad to ditch Chris. Around the same time Em, Chris and I went to a movie. There were only 2 free seats together in the theater so we put the arm rest up and the three of us shared them. That didn’t hurt my feelings any.

Then this happened,

BYU played Utah last night. It was a good game. We watched the first half at the neighbors but Martha had a dance concert last night too so we went to that. We recorded the second half and watched it after her concert. The dance concert was good. Chris and Jarad came with us too. We tried to not find out about the game but someone had to yell that we won. It was still fun to watch it when we got home. It was a good game. I was sitting by Chris on their couch and he held my hand. I was really surprised. I still don’t know what to think about it. We went and watched a meteor shower last night too and we laid by each other. It wasn’t too much until the end when he kind of put his arm around me and I laid on his shoulder. Who knows what will happen. It really did surprise me because he’s never really done anything to really make me think he was interested. Maybe he’s not, who knows. I’ll have to wait and see.

On the way to watch the meteor shower and watching the meteor shower

A few days later I wrote

November 20, 2001

Well, today was an interesting day. I meant to stay on campus and do my homework but that didn’t happen. When I got home I noticed that Chris was home. He was sitting on a chair in his front yard. I went inside and cleaned the kitchen and thought about how I wanted him to come over. Then he did. I was happy. We went and got our licenses renewed since both of ours expire this week. Then he invited me in when we got back. We talked for awhile then we watched a movie. We were there alone at first and he had his arm around me. Then Giles came home and his other roommates started coming home. I was kind of embarrassed. I don’t know what they were thinking. Mostly because I don’t know what he’s thinking or what’s up.